Some years ago, I was trying to do a winter ascent of Mt Humphries in Arizona with two companions. We encountered deep, loose snow and I was the only one with snowshoes. I continued on, while my ocmpanions wisely turned back. Arriving at timberline, I stashed the shoes, as the summit ridge was blown clear by high winds. I literally crawled the last few steps to the summit.

Descending, I got to my snowshoes, and decided to leave them behind, since I was "going downhill." I plowed ahead, and soon a setting sun indicated that I would have to spend the night out, since I could see that I had progressed maybe about 200 yards in the last half hour.

I made a little burrow, roofed it with a tarp and went through a cycle of snooze, wake up, light the stove, make a hot drink, wriggle toes to avoid frostbite, and sleep again. In the morning I made much better progress and reached the parking lot at the Arizona Snow Bowl, nothing frozen.

I was a strange animal, a combination of turkey and hot dog, who managed to make enough decent decisions to offset the bad calls and to avoid disaster. I learned not to try postholing snow ever again.

The excursion was a training climb for the Mexican volcanoes in a couple of weeks later. Orizaba and Popo were much easier since the snow was harder and we had crampons and axes.

A few years later, I would often climb Humphries on a summer morning and mow my in laws lawn in the afternoon. It is a routine hike in the summer.